Dickens: OLIVER TWIST
The novel
begins in the early 1800. A
young woman arrives at a workhouse in a small town north of London here she gives birth to a boy and then dies. The child is
given the name Oliver Twist and is put into a workhouse orphanage until the age
of nine, when he's transferred to the workhouse itself. Here all the young boys
are poorly fed. One of the episod 818e47i e of this novel takes place at meal time in
the large stone hall in which the boys are fed, in fact each boy has only one
dish and no more, so they are so hungry that hell a council in which they
decide who should walk up to the master to ask more food, and it fell to
Oliver. He thus ask for more food and the reactions to his request are
underline by the author who wants to point out that Oliver is consider to be a
criminal because he spokes up against authority. Finally Oliver is imprisoned
and will be sell for five pounds.
DAVID COPPERFIELD
Born after
his father's death, D C spends some years with his mother and the devoted
servant Clara Pegotty but then the marriage of his
mother with Mr Murdstone and the arrive into the
house of his sister Miss Murdstone brings a change
into his life. David is soon sent to a boarding school near London
and when his mother dies of a broken heart he's sent to work in London, he's only ten and
fortunately for him he finds lodgings with the Micawber
family. David likes them very much and is sorry when they are sent to debtor's
prison. Alone again, David seeks help whit his great-ount
Betsey Trotwood; she takes care of him and sends him to an excellent school in
Canterbury, she also helps him find lodgings with Mr Wickfield,
a lawyer who lives with is young daughter Agnes. David decides to became lawyer
but early he realise that he doesn't like law and begins to write poetry, his
first book is a great success. When his wife dies he realises that he has
always loved Agnes Wickfield, so the two got married
and David becomes a famous writer.
HARD TIMES
That's a
novel of social protest which attack utilitarianism. It is set in Coketown, an invented industrial city in northern England in the
middle 1800's. Coketown has the characteristic of
real factory towns like Manchester.
Dickens shows his humour describing the monotony and the sadness of this city
where buildings were of poor quality and usually built in industrial
working-class areas and where things appeared to be all like one another. In Coketown Mr Gradgrind runs a
school where education is strictly functional, arts and literature are totally
excluded and for children there is no imagination because they must learn
nothing but facts. Mr G is austern and sever, a man of realities and calculation, and from his
figure we can understand how rigid the Victorian education was.
